Panther Chameleon Health Help

[WAMBO]

Since it usually was dehydration related it took 2-3 days.

2 horn worms each day for 3 days made my cham's urates bright white! But I have a question. We treat osteoporosis with calcium and Vit D, but no one here seems to give calcium with vitamin D3 to treat MBD. Would it hurt to use it for a brief time, like a week or two? Or does the UVB lights and sunlight work well enough for chams, so that vit D3 just isn't needed?

 

[Lizzie The Chameleon]

2 horn worms each day for 3 days made my cham's urates bright white! But I have a question. We treat osteoporosis with calcium and Vit D, but no one here seems to give calcium with vitamin D3 to treat MBD. Would it hurt to use it for a brief time, like a week or two? Or does the UVB lights and sunlight work well enough for chams, so that vit D3 just isn't needed?

My vet said BC my Cham is calcium deficient, in giving her the stuff with d3 every feeding for a week or so. I think it would be fine

 

[WAMBO]

My vet said BC my Cham is calcium deficient, in giving her the stuff with d3 every feeding for a week or so. I think it would be fine

That's what I would assume too. Thanks. The extra D3 would facilitate absorption of calcium [in deficient animals], but it would discontinued before it got to toxic levels.

 

[Lizzie The Chameleon]

Thanks.

No problem!

 

[Andee]

To answer you Wambo:

D3 is given once a week usually. If you want to give powdered calcium with d3 for a week straight that wouldn't hurt, but it also probably wouldn't absorb as much to help a chameleon with severe MBD. For that they need liquid calcium, one prescribed by a vet. A shot of D3 can help for those who aren't too far into MBD. Liquid calcium and intravenous D3 is easier to absorb. Natural sunlight for several hours including a uvb light would be incredibly helpful no matter what you do.

 

[WAMBO]

To answer you Wambo:

D3 is given once a week usually. If you want to give powdered calcium with d3 for a week straight that wouldn't hurt, but it also probably wouldn't absorb as much to help a chameleon with severe MBD. For that they need liquid calcium, one prescribed by a vet. A shot of D3 can help for those who aren't too far into MBD. Liquid calcium and intravenous D3 is easier to absorb. Natural sunlight for several hours including a uvb light would be incredibly helpful no matter what you do.

Thanks Now I understand. I was just wondering why I keep seeing calcium without D3 recommended, with increasing UVB and natural sunlight exposure, instead of just giving calcium with D3 daily for a short period of time, along with more UVB and natural sunlight.
So I guess since it's going to be long term therapy, recommending Calcium without D3 is wiser, because if calcium with D3 would add little to the treatment if it was recommended for short term, and owners may think that D3 every day would be OK for longer periods of time for treatment, and actually cause more harm than good.
We use Vitamin D with calcium for humans as their skin sunlight exposure is quite limited, and the amount in the calcium pills is limited, so it is needed.

 

[Andee]

Mbd takes months to possibly a couple years to stop the progression. Of it. However they are always more likely to progress into calcium deficiency if they have already had a deficiency in their bones.

 

[WAMBO]

Mbd takes months to possibly a couple years to stop the progression. Of it. However they are always more likely to progress into calcium deficiency if they have already had a deficiency in their bones.

Same with humans especially older women, but we can add some more types of drugs. This stresses the importance of natural sunlight and/or changing your UVB light regularly. Prevention is key in both species. There is a high morbidity and mortality with it too. Broken hip today, surgery tomorrow, DVT and pulmonary embolism 2 to 4 weeks from now.

 

[Andee]

Yes I agree